Breakthrough as SNP and Labour agree to share Fife Council control

Neil Henderson

The two week deadlock has been broken and Fife Council is to be run by way of a power sharing agreement between the Nationalists and Labour.

In a political first for Fife, the leaders of the region’s two main parties met face-to-face today to hammer out a deal that has resulted in both groups taking on agreed roles in order to form a new administration.

While no formal announcement will be made until after tomrrow’s full council meeting, it’s understood that both leaders - David Alexander, who is the new head of Fife SNP, and Fife Labour leader David Ross, will co-share the leadership role to move the situation forward.

The move comes after no one one party secured enough seats to have an outright majority in the recent Fife Council election on May 4.

Both the SNP, with 29 councillors and Labour, with 24, were quick to rule out a coalition with the Fife Conservative Group, who saw their vote surge and and seats increase from three to 15, once all the votes were counted.

Cllr Dave Dempsey,Fife Conservative leader, has this afternoon called for all parties agree a deal to take control, and has doubted whether a power sharing deal between SNP and Labour would last because of what he refered to as the “history of antagonism” between the two groups.

“Our proposal gets round all that by allowing every party to have a stake based on its number of councillors,” he added.

“That way, every councillor is working for something and no-one is consigned to opposition. That’s what the electorate voted for.”